NAB 2008 Summary

If, like me, you couldn't possibly keep up with all of the goings-on at NAB and decided to wait it out until the end, here is a short summary of the biggest announcements (or the ones most interesting to me anyway) in bitesize form.

RED
New low-end portable camera Scarlet

• 3K
• Around $3000
• Early 2009 release
• New Mysterium X Sensor
• 1-120 fps (180 fps burst)
• 100MB/sec Redcode RAW and RGB recording via dual Compact Flash
• 4.8 inch LCD
• Fixed 8x T2.8 lens
• Auto and manual shooting modes
• Wi-Fi control - this one opens up many possibilities

PVC Scarlet write-up

New high-end camera Epic

• 5K (up from 4K)
• I have heard both $30,000 and $40,000 quoted (up from $17,500)
• Early 2009 release
• New Full-Frame S35 Mysterium X Sensor
• 1-100 fps (up from 1-60 fps)
• 100MB/sec (up from 36 MB/sec) Redcode and HDMI recording
• 6 lb body (down from 10 lbs)
• RAW and RGB recording to Red Flash
• Wi-Fi control
• Fully upgradeable
• You can get a full $17,500 credit for your Red One if you upgrade

PVC Epic write-up

New playback device RED Ray

• Early 2009
• 4K in
• 4K, 2K, 1080p, 720p, SD playback
• Can play back content from a regular red laser disc
• Plays native R3D files from Compact Flash
• 4 HD SDI and 4
  HDMI connections for 4K
• 2 HD SDI and 2 HDMI connections for 2K
• 2 hrs of 4K with 5.1 audio on a regular DVD
• FireWire 800 for connecting external hard disks or cameras
• Under $1000

PVC RED Ray write-up
Scott Simmons at the Editblog has several photographs of the various RED products.

Sony
PMW-EX3

• Around $13,000
• Uses SxS cards (similar to P2)
• Removable lens
• 1080i / 720p switchable
• Genlock and timecode inputs
• Shoulder-mounted
• Available late 2008

F35

• S35-sized sensor
• Extensive depth of field controls
• Greater dynamic range than the F23 (800% more)
• PL lens mount allows regular 35mm film lenses to be used

Panasonic
P2 Varicams (AJ-HPX3700 and AJ-HPX2700)

• Now uses P2 cards exclusively. 5x P2 slots available on each camera
• 2/3" CCDs
• Full-res 10-bit 4:2:2 AVC Intra-100 recording
• Variable frame rates in 1-frame increments
• Available fall 2008

AG-HPX170 solid-state camcorder

• Improves on the successful HVX200
• 1/3" premium-quality CCDs offering increased sensitivity and lower noise
• 13x lens with 28mm wide-angle setting (widest in its class)
• 12-60 fps in 720p-mode
• P2-only; no tape deck
• Much smaller and lighter than the HVX200
• Available fall 2008

Here is a great summary from DVXUser.com.

AJ-HVX200A camcorder

• Successor to the hugely popular HVX-200
• Incorporates the same lens and CCDs as the new HPX170 but with a tape deck for transitioning from a MiniDV workflow

Here is a great review from DVXUser.com.

64 GB P2 card

• More than 4 hours of DVCPRO footage
• More than 2 hours of DVCPRO50 or AVC-Intra 50
• More than 64 minutes of AVC-Intra 100 or DVCPRO HD
• Available fall 2008

AJ-PCD35 ExpressCard P2 drive

• Allows P2 cards to be used in machines with ExpressCard ports
• Can transfer from up to 5 cards at once
• Available late 2008

Imagineer Systems
High-end finishing system mogul

• Monthly subscription includes hardware, software and maintenance. Annual hardware upgrades
• Open platform allows content sharing and management between multiple applications
• Editing, compositing and grading integrated to allow you to switch from one to the other without rendering
• Software "plugs in" to the architecture to perform certain tasks such as mogul/roto and mogul/comp with similar interfaces
• mogul/serve shipping at NAB, other products to be determined

Studio Daily mogul interview

Matrox
MXO 2

• Inputs: Component HD/SD, SDI HD/SD, Embedded SDI audio, Y/C, Composite, XLR audio, RCA audio, AES/EBU, HDMI, Embedded HDMI audio
• Outputs: Component HD/SD, SDI HD/SD, Embedded SDI audio, Y/C, Composite, RCA audio, XLR audio, AES/EBU, HDMI, Embedded HDMI audio, Direct 5.1 surround monitoring
• This does not have a DVI output like the MXO so it cannot output to a Cinema Display
• Dynamic RT acceleration and hardware up/downscaling
• Designed for HDMI monitoring with calibration and 1:1 pixel mapping
• Black burst and tri-sync for HD
• $1600
• Released July 2008

Differences between the MXO and MXO 2 (PDF)
Shane Ross's write-up

Apple releases 8800 GT for old Mac Pros

Early Mac Pro users can now use Apple's NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT Upgrade Kit to add the latest graphics card to their machine.

However, before you rush off to find your credit card, I would advise holding off for a while until Apple fixes the performance issues with an updated driver (these are normally included in operating system updates but sometimes are offered separately).

And if you're planning to use it with Color, you're better off with the original ATI Radeon X1900 XT as the NVIDIA card supports fewer working bit-depths.

But if you're a gamer, you're grand.

160 GB SSDs coming soon?

This is a few days old but still worth mentioning. Intel has announced that it is entering the SSD (solid-state disk) market this year. In addition to bringing down prices through extra competition, Intel is also offering speed improvements over existing SSD drives from other manufacturers.

Details are sparse but enough to whet our appetites - there will be a SATA (3 Gbps) version and the drives will range from 80 to 160 GB in size (in comparison, the largest generally-available ones are 64 GB). This means that SSDs can, for the first time, directly compete with hard drives on a technical level. They can't yet compete with hard disks on price but Intel is predicting prices of less than $200 by 2010.

This means a lot because solid-state disks are considerably smaller, faster and more reliable than conventional hard disks. Tests with the MacBook Air have shown considerably faster boot and application loading times. The traditional downside to SSDs (and something Intel did not mention) is that their write speeds are considerably lower than their read speeds - in fact, lower than the write speed of a conventional hard disk. This will no doubt change with time but for some tasks such as high-bandwidth acquisition, they are not yet ready to replace something like the RED Drive.

They would be great in a video editing environment though, where you don't need to write large amounts of data very often and much of the your time is spent reading data. With a lot of editing systems (particularly with the advent of 8 core Mac Pros), the bottleneck lies in the disk speed. It can also improve the responsiveness of applications like Final Cut Pro that store only a limited amount of timeline information (such as clip thumbnails) in the main memory, with the rest on disk. I can't wait to see these new drives in a RAID 0 configuration.

Poor GeForce 8800 GT Pro App performance

BareFeats has some benchmarks of the new Nvidia 8800 GT in Motion 3. The interesting thing is how badly the two Nvidia cards (8800 GT and Quadro FX 5600) perform compared to the ATI cards, causing many people to cancel their orders.

The Nvidia 8800 GT is meant to be considerably more powerful than the ATI Radeon 2600 XT but it beats it in all of the tests except gaming, which isn't much help to readers of this blog.

Then add the fact that Color doesn't work well on Nvidia cards as they only offer a limited set of working bit depths, and there is a serious problem for owners of the new Mac Pros. They do not have a high-end ATI graphics card option, and it seems like all pro apps are optimized for ATI.

Their only solution is to go back to the ATI X1900 XT, which is a great card, but it is old tech. You also need to jump through a few hoops in order to get it working. I think the ATI buyout by AMD has complicated the situation for Apple and Intel, which is unfortunate. Let's hope Apple will release some new drivers soon to at least reduce the performance issues.

New Macbooks and MacBook Pros

Apple just refreshed its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines to support Intel's new Penryn chipset. Here are the specs:

MacBook

	2.1 GHz model	2.4 GHz models
CPU (Core 2 Duo)	2.1 GHz with 3 MB cache	2.4 GHz with 3 MB cache
RAM	1 GB	2 GB
FSB	800 MHz	800 MHz
Hard disk	120 GB 5400 RPM 160 or 250 GB 5400 RPM	160 or 250 GB 5400 RPM
Display	Glossy TFT	Glossy TFT
Graphics	Intel GMA X3100 144 MB MB shared	Intel GMA X3100 144 MB MB shared
Battery Life	4.5 hours	4.5 hours
Trackpad	Two-finger standard	Two-finger standard

More details here.

MacBook Pro

	15" model	17" model
CPU (Core 2 Duo)	2.4 GHz with 3 MB cache 2.5 or 2.6 GHz with 6 MB cache	2.5 or 2.6 GHz with 6 MB cache
RAM	2 GB	2 GB
FSB	800 MHz	800 MHz
Hard disk	200 or 250 GB 5400 RPM 200 GB 7200 RPM	250 GB 5400 RPM 200 GB 7200 RPM 300 GB 4200 RPM
Display	LED backlit Optional glossy display	Anti-glare TFT Optional LED-backlit display Optional glossy screen
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT: 256 MB with 2.4 GHz CPU 512 MB with 2.5 or 2.6 GHz CPU	Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT with 512 MB RAM
Battery Life	5 hours	4.5 hours 5 hours with LED display
Trackpad	Multi-touch	Multi-touch

More details here.

If you are buying an editing machine, you will want to choose a non-glossy display (preferably LED) with as fast a processor as you can afford. Buy the minimum amount of RAM and get it somewhere else for much less. Apple's memory is notoriously expensive compared to other retailers, even though it is identical. You are paying a premium for Apple's assurance that it will work, but I have never run into problems with third-party memory.

The biggest difference between the two is the fact that the MacBook Pro has dedicated graphics, which means that you will experience much better performance in applications like Motion. Color will not start up at all on a MacBook because of this reason.

The MacBook Pro also has the advantage of FireWire 800 ports for faster data transfers to external hard disks - essential for HDV editing.

So a MacBook Pro is recommended but you can get by with a MacBook if you are only editing SD footage and you will not be using Motion or Color.

Update 2/29/08: Engadget has some benchmarks showing that the speed is slightly faster between the new MacBook Pro and the old one but the heat output is considerably less.

Xserve RAID replaced by third party solution

Today has been a day of good news and bad news. The good news is that Xsan 2 was released and it looks GREAT, and the bad news is that Apple has now discontinued the Xserve RAID. It's bad news but it's bad news with a decent solution.

There was no official statement from Apple but the old Xserve RAID page now points to the Promise VTrak E-Class RAID Subsystem. It's a shame as I love our Xserve RAIDs (we have three), even though they do put out a lot of heat and noise.

I can see why Apple did it, as the price and complexity did not help sales, and endorsing an established third party is cheaper and easier. The Xserve RAIDs were in need of a update, so it is refreshing to read the specs on this machine:

	Xserve RAID	Promise V-Track
Fibre Channel Port Speed	2 GB	4 GB
Fibre Ports per Controller	1	2
Max number of drives	14	16
Max drive size	750 GB	750 GB
Max storage	10.5 TB	12 TB (24 TB with expansion module)
Drive type	Ultra ATA	SATA / SAS
Controller cache	512 MB	2 GB
On-drive cache	8 MB	16 MB
Redundant controllers	No	Yes
Expansion	None	Expansion chassis adds 16 extra drives
Rack size	3U	3U

See more specs here.

Pricing Comparison

Low-End:


Mid-Range


High-End


Other Promise Configurations


This is without a doubt much better value for money than the Xserve RAID but the high initial cost will put a lot of people off, I would imagine. I think I am going to take advantage of cheap Xserve RAID units and get the maximum possible performance out of our existing units before shelling out for these.

I have spoken to a few people that own Promise RAIDs and they say they are very satisfied with them, so my mind is at rest on that front.

MacBook Air: Solid-state vs regular hard disk

AppleInsider pitted a solid-state MacBook Air against one with a regular hard disk. They found that with large amounts of data, the read speeds of these drives were up to 18 times faster than regular hard disks. Write speeds were lower, at around 70% but when you compare a 30% loss in write speed to an 1800% gain in read speed, I'd gladly take that performance hit.

SSDs have other advantages:
* They are more reliable because they have no moving parts
* They are great for situations where data is littered all over the hard drive because they do not have heads that need to physically move from one area to another
* No noise
* Lower power consumption and less heat generated

Now, can you think of an application where reliability is important, you are transferring a lot of data that may be all over the place, where reading is more common than writing, and where noise and heat is undesirable?

I can't wait to throw out my Xserve RAIDs and replace them with SSD ones. They are noisy, they generate a ton of heat, I constantly worry about them failing on me, and they are really heavy and bulky. I would love to have a 1U SSD Xserve RAID that is lightweight, fast and quiet.

Unfortunately, price is the limiting factor right now. However, the proliferation of the iPhone and iPod Touch, and the increasing demand for SSD storage in compact notebooks will bring the price down with time. We're at a turning point right now because for the first time, SSDs have reached a size and price point that makes them viable for consumer laptops. There is no way they could have offered a 32 GB SSD with the Air. Ok, $999 is a lot for a 64 GB disk but it is within reach. It will probably be half that in 12 months' time anyway.

When the size and price becomes viable though, these will be great for editors.

NVIDIA working on Mac support for GPGPUs

AppleInsider is reporting that, according to its sources, NVIDIA is working on General Purpose Graphical Processing Unit (GPGPU) support for the Macintosh.

Unlike conventional graphics chips, GPGPUs can perform general purpose processing tasks and are not limited to graphical calculations only. This allows non-graphical software to utilize the GPU for other processing tasks, speeding up calculations. Software like Compressor could use this to speed up rendering, and Motion and Final Cut Pro could re-use the graphics processor as a standard processor when it is not needed for graphics-accelerated rendering. It would also be beneficial to laptop users, as it would provide more power efficiency (performance per watt).

GPGPUs cannot process every task that a CPU could though. They are used to processing several streams of graphical data simultaneously, so they work best with parallel tasks in which several similar tasks are being completed at the same time (e.g. rendering video frames in Compressor).

NVIDIA's chips use a technology called CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) that allows software to communicate with the graphics processor and issue commands to it. ATI has a similar technology called CTM (Close to Metal).

The important factor that people seem to be missing is that GPGPUs are present in Nvidia's GeForce 8800 chips. This is confirmed by this page. This means that the GeForce 8800 GXT for the Mac Pro is already a GPGPU; it is just a case of developing OS X software to utilize it.

NVIDIA has put out a job posting for a full-time OS X CUDA driver developer, so it looks like this process is about to begin. It will probably be a long time before we see GPGPU-enabled applications because Apple will have to release driver and framework support for it before any developers can start work on CUDA applications. It is a very exciting development though.

Macworld 2008 Keynote

Here's what Santa Steve has in store for us:

* New Airport Extreme with built-in storage, called "Time Capsule". It's designed for Time Machine, so that laptop users don't have to keep plugging in external hard drives. Backup is better automated, as users will always forget or just be lazy. Two options: 500 GB for $299 and 1 TB for $499. It will ship in February.

* New iPhone features - Maps with locations (it triangulates both cell towers and wi-fi points), webclips, customizable home screens (up to 9 separate screens), SMS multiple people at once, chapters, subtitles, and language support in video, and lyrics support in audio. This is all via the 1.1.3 firmware update that was previously leaked, and it is out today for free.

* New iPod touch features - Now features Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes and Weather, that were previously featured exclusively on the iPhone. The update is $20 for existing users but included in the price of new units. The charge is probably partly due to potentially cannibalizing iPhone sales and partly due to accounting (they're not allowed to add major new features later on for free).

* iTunes Movie Rentals - They have Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, New Line, Lionsgate, Fox, Warner Brothers, Disney, Paramount, Universal and Sony on board. New rentals come out 30 days after DVD releases, and they will have 1000 in the library by the end of February. You have 30 days to begin watching it and you must finish it within 24 hours once you've started. You can rent in both HD and SD quality. For HD: $3.99 for older titles, $4.99 for new releases. SD titles are $1 less. There will be software updates today to enable this functionality.

* Apple TV has a brand new UI. You can rent directly from your couch, using an on-screen keyboard to type things in. You can also get podcasts and music videos. It also has .Mac and Flickr support, allowing you to view friends' photo albums. All of this software will be enabled via a free software upgrade in the next two weeks. They're also knocking $70 off the price. You also no longer require a computer in order to use it.

* They now have a deal with Fox where all new Fox Blu-ray titles will have an iTunes-compatible version on the disc designed for iPod users.

* MacBook Air - "The world's thinnest notebook". It has a 13.3" widescreen LED display (not LCD) and is 0.16 inches at its thinnest end and 0.76 at its thickest. It weighs 3lbs. Steve even whipped out an envelope on stage and fitted it inside! It's aluminum with a backlit black full-size keyboard and trackpad. The trackpad supports advanced gestures (a la the iPhone), allowing you to perform extra application functions without needing the keyboard. It also comes with an iSight camera. 80 GB hard drive as standard or you can opt for a 64 GB solid-state flash drive (much faster but considerably more expensive). 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with 1.8 GHz available as an option. It turns out that the processor inside is specifically made for the Air, and has been shrunk by 60% at Apple's request.

It does not come with a CD or DVD drive but there is an external one for $99 that is specifically designed for it. Apple has also created software called Remote Disc that allows you to browse other machines' optical drives via wi-fi and install software using their optical drives. You can do this with both Mac and PC machines.

It also has 5 hours of battery life when you browse the web with Wi-fi switched on. The price is $1799 and it will ship in two weeks. Pre-orders available now. It is also more eco-friendly than its predecessors, using less packaging and no mercury, arsenic, BFR or PVC.

Analysis
Ok, ok, I was wrong with my prediction of no sub-notebook. But it's good to see that Apple has dealt with the potential issues I brought up. This is a great machine for those that need something small and light without compromising power.

My favorite announcement today was iTunes movie rentals and how Apple has integrated these with the Apple TV. Steve acknowledged that the Apple TV had missed the mark somewhat, and that movies are the main driving point. I was expecting movie rentals but I was not expecting HD support as well. I was considering signing up for a Netflix account but this deal is much better. You can rent HD movies that will work on Macs, PCs, the Apple TV, iPods and iPhones for a relatively low fee. No other online rental company offers this. It is also considerably more convenient than sending and receiving discs in the mail.

I am also considering buying an Apple TV now. The device has considerably more use to me now that you can rent and watch HD movies directly from the comfort of your sofa. There is no word on whether purchased movies will be offered in HD as well, or even if they will continue to be offered at all. I will probably hold off purchasing it just yet though, as I am sure that Apple will put a DVD drive in it once a format "wins" the war. I may as well get one unit that does everything instead of 3 or 4, all with different remotes.

Steve mentioned the SDK briefly but did not really go into detail about it, which surprised me. And no 16 GB iPhone or new MacBook Pros either. I was certain they were going to be there. Maybe Apple will just do a minor update to the 'Pros without fanfare later in the year. Steve said that there were a lot of things coming in two weeks but that "there are another 50" afterwards, implying that the announcements are far from over. No new cinema displays and no mention of the Mac Mini either. Some rumor sites have been saying for years that the Mini is about to be killed off but it seems to be the one thing that no-one ever talks about. I think if Steve were to kill it, he would have something better to immediately replace it.

So, in summary, a pretty good keynote. I don't think the stock will jump as high as it did with the iPhone announcement last year but I think this will go down well with investors.

Update: Apple's site has more details on everything announced at the keynote. Also check Software Update because iTunes 7.6 and QuickTime 7.4 are already available for download (at least for me - sometimes they stagger updates across geographic locations). Do not install these on your production machine! Be especially wary of QuickTime 7.4 if you do not have an up-to-date version of Final Cut Pro.

Update 2: View the keynote video online.

Also, Blockbuster and Netflix shares dropped significantly after the keynote. Surprisingly, so did Apple's. It turns out that people were somewhat disappointed with today's keynote. The Macbook Air is a well-designed machine but the price is somewhat prohibitive, which is a shame. If you choose the solid-state drive, it takes the price to over $3000. The price per GB of solid-state memory is falling significantly every year so it would not make sense to spend that much on the solid-state version right now.

New Xserves

When Apple released the new Mac Pros, they also updated their Xserve server line as well.

	New High-End Model (Early 2008)	Previous High-End Model (Late 2006)
Processor	2x Xeon 5400 quad core (8 cores) at 3 GHz	2x Xeon 5100 dual core (4 cores) at 3 GHz
Cache	12 MB per processor (24 MB total)	4 MB per processor (8 MB total)
SSE extensions	128-bit SSE4	128-bit SSE3
Frontside Bus	1.6 GHz	1.33 GHz
Memory	800 MHz DDR2	667MHz DDR2
Max hard drive space	3 TB	2.25 TB
PCI Express	2.0	1.0
Power supply	750W	650W

I can't believe that they managed to get an 8 core machine inside a 1U server. Even more amazing is that you are essentially getting double the machine with only a 100W power supply increase. This is a major improvement in performance-per-watt. The Xserve also houses an array of sensors that intelligently monitor temperature and idleness, and adjust processor and fan speeds accordingly. The Xserve power supplies also exceed 80% efficiency guidelines.

I'm not going to go into the processor improvements here, as I already did that in my Mac Pro post, but the power of having 8 cores in a server can be seen on Apple's benchmark page. It's been a while since there was an Xserve update so this new model beats its predecessor by huge amounts. On average, this machine is about 90% faster than its predecessor.

If you have ever used an Xserve, you will also welcome the news that the new model features a USB port on the front so no more delving around behind it to plug in a keyboard and mouse.

This is a great machine.